In the United States, Americans have constantly been fighting to eradicate the use of drugs for many decades now. By creating the policy known as “The War on Drugs”, many politicians and presidential advisors of the war on drugs policy claim that it was a necessary element to help deter criminals and reduce crime rate. However, statistics reveals that no dramatic effects or influences has the drug deterrent policy been adequate and successful. (Boyd) Studies tend to show that the racial discrepancy has played in part of why their objective has been so unsuccessful. (Boyd) The policy has led to a disproportionate amount of incarceration minorities of all color and injustice action that law enforcement, and the justice system used to abuse their …show more content…
The first anti-drug law in our country started in San Francisco which passed in 1875. (Block) The local law outlawed the smoking of opium and was directed at the Chinese people because it was a peculiarly “Chinese” habit. Many believed that Chinese men were using these drugs to lure white women to have sexual intercourse in opium dens with them. Conversely, white women have been in possession and abusing the opiums before. However, no action was taken against any Americans until Chinese use became popular in the United States. In 1909, the congress made smoking opium a federal offense by enacting the Anti-Opium act. (Block) Intentionally, other forms of taking opium were not outlawed such as drinking and injecting tinctures of opiates as they were a popular form of use by white Americans. (Block) This further reinforced Chinese racism as the law was carving out an exception for white Americans and targeting Chinese immigrants. Furthermore, in 1914, the congress had passed the Harrison Tax Act, which not only outlawed opium but also cocaine. (Lesser) As opium were often associated with Chinese, cocaine was associated with African Americans or dark colored skinned Americans. With a history of laws being triggered by racial prejudice, Americans often are ignorant of the motivation behind each law. Majority of people often assumes it was for the safety of the society and the communities as the government often used propaganda to sway people to think one way instead of another. According to an article, “The government also began an aggressively racist propaganda attack against cocaine-using black Americans and opium-using 'Chinamen,” (Lesser). As we take a look back in history, we start to understand and enlighten ourselves that not all laws are to protect the rights of American citizens as minorities seem to be seen as inferior to white Americans. The belief in
Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explained how our treatment of criminals has created a new racial caste system, and the only way to make change is by massive social change and Civil Rights movement. The criminal laws often focus on psychoactive drugs used by the minority populations. Minorities are disproportionately targeted, arrested, and punished for drug offenses. For instance, Black, Latino, Native American, and many Asian were portrayed as violent, traffickers of drugs and a danger to society. Surveillance was focused on communities of color, also immigrants, the unemployed, the undereducated, and the homeless, who continue to be the main targets of law enforcement efforts to fight the war on drugs. Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow”(drug policy). The drug
After getting the public support for his campaign, America saw an unprecedented rise in its incarceration rate, particularly among African Americans. The “ War on Drugs ” has had a disparate impact on the black community even though blacks and whites use drugs at approximately the same levels. This is achieved through a myriad of formal and informal practices. African-Americans are targeted and prosecuted at a much higher rate even though they are not statistically any likelier to abuse or sell drugs than the white population.
“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.
For most of our history, drug use has been legal for recreational, religious, and medicinal purposes. During the 19th century, opium, morphine, and cocaine could be purchased over-the-counter to treat medical conditions such as menstrual cramps, teething pain, coughs, depression, and even addiction (Hellerman). On December 17, 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was introduced which heavily restricted the use of narcotics, and was based on racial fears and discrimination. The drafters of the bill stated that “negroes under the influence of drugs were murdering whites, degenerate Mexicans were smoking marijuana, and “chinamen” were seducing white women with drugs” (Huggins). Regardless of the restrictions placed on narcotics, the 20th century followed the
Throughout history, the drug war has always targeted minority groups. “At the root of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race, which is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s (Cohen, 56)”. There were many drug laws that targeted minority groups such as the marijuana ban of 1930s that criminalized Mexican migrant farm workers and in the Jim Crow South, reformist wanted to wage war on the Negro cocaine feign so they used African Americans as a scapegoat while they overlooked southern white women who were a bigger problem for the drug epidemic (Cohen, 57). Instead of tackling the root of the drug problem they passed the blame to struggling minority groups within the United States.
The “War on Drugs” established that the impact of incarceration would be used as a weapon to combat the illegal drug problem in this country. Unfortunately, this war against drugs has fallen disproportionately on black Americans. “Blacks constitute 62.6% of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons in 1996, whereas whites constituted 36.7%. The drug offender admissions rate for black men ranges from 60 to an astonishing 1,146 per 100,000 black men. In contrast, the white rate begins at 6 and rises no higher than 139 per 100,000 white men. Drug offenses accounted for nearly two out of five of all black admissions to state prisons (Human Rights Watch, 2000).” The disproportionate rates at which black drug offenders are sent to prison originate in racially disproportionate rates of arrest.
Harsh, cruel, and unusual is an understatement to the punishments given to drug dealers for their drug related offenses. Mandatory minimum drug sentencing was arguably established to target higher level drug dealers but recently the majority of cases have been low level drug dealers. Distributing narcotics is a serious offense, but do these people who are trying to support themselves, a family, or an addiction deserve to spend close to a lifetime incarcerated?
The Drug Policy Alliance is an organization dedicated to making reforms to US drug laws, abolishing the failed the war on drugs, and advocating for harm reduction strategies. Located on their website, the article "Race and the Drug War", cites several troubling statistics and everyday realities that link the drug war to racism and discrimination. Among these, the fact that despite the rates of drug use being similar across racial lines, black Americans are more than three times as likely to be arrested for drug crimes. This is due to the fact that low-income, predominantly black neighborhoods are heavily patrolled for drug activity while higher-income neighborhoods are less scrutinized. The aim of the article is meant to persuade the reader
The US needs to reduce its spending on penalization and law enforcement and focus more on education, prevention, and treatment. Some of the measures taken to eliminate the sources have yielded; nonetheless, the law should protect the citizens from discrimination by race in the process. The US prisons have a large number of people charged with drug related crimes, but most of these offenders are people of color accused of minor offenses. Substance Abuse and Criminal Justice System According to research, no other issue in the last two decades has had more impact on the criminal justice system than the “war on drugs” policy (Stevenson, 2011). The policy has contributed to an enormous growth of American prisons and a disproportional impact on the minorities and the low-income communities. The policy has only focused on punishment rather than treatment of the issue. Many Americans have complained about the policies and why the government is reluctant to make these policies target the big fish who are the main culprits of the issue (Stevenson, 2011). Discussed below are the many problems that have been brought about by the drug policy. •
In 1971 President Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs stating that drug abuse was “public enemy number one”. Four decades later America is still waging this war that many say can never truly be won. The goal of this campaign has always been the prohibition of drugs, military aid, and military intervention with the stated aim being to define and reduce the illegal drug trade however the tactics used thus far have done little to solve the problem of drugs in the United State. The use of military to combat this issue has resulted in billions of tax dollars with little results. Since 1970 the drug addiction rate has stayed consistent while the U.S. drug controlled spending has dramatically increased. Illegal drug trafficking thrives and violence escalates as this war against drugs wages on. The call to end the war on drugs has been made but can we really end something that should be treated like any other social issue?
As U.S. Drug Policy has become more politicized, the number of laws for using, and possessing illegal substances has increased, and the number of those using illicit drugs has risen. Though drug policies were created with the intent of protecting the public, a gap has developed between different groups - the “drug warriors” and the “legalizers”. These polarizing groups advocate opposing, often politically-driven views that result in overly punitive drug penalties that are expensive, racially disparate, and totally ineffective. Consequently, movements inspiring a drug counter culture against this oppression has emerged in America and illicit drug use has increased. By the second half of the 20th century the major importation of illegal narcotics and the drug war were just getting started.
The war on drugs is a long going battle and it has created many issues all around the world and as of today the highest prison population can be found in the United States due to drug charges. About half of the inmates with in federal and state prisons can be found on drug convictions. Those charges can range from possession of an illicit substance to drug trafficking that surprisingly continues to be an issue in federal and state prisons. How can United States put an end to the war on drugs?
In 2009 1,663,582 people were arrested for non-violent drug charges. These people’s lives are now forever changed because of a mistake they made. This mistake is continually made every single day and Americans are being punished in extreme ways for a non violent crime. The United States needs to decimalize all drugs because the drug war is costly, causes high incarceration rates, and isn’t effective as European drug solutions.
The United States has been fighting with drugs for decades, in 1973 President Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to “declare” the war on drugs, announcing the world that the United States is planning to fight drug addiction. Since then, the U.S. government has spent 51 billion dollars annually fighting the war on drugs but with negligent results. For a war without a clear enemy, it seems impossible to win. In the TV series The Wire, the city Western Baltimore are also facing drug abuse, and the Police Department is fighting the war on drugs by arresting street level drug dealers. Without any reliable plans and with the pressure from his supervisor, Major Colvin, a man tried hard to make his community better, created Hamsterdam,
America's War on Drugs has been a controversial social topic since it's development, initiated by President Richard Nixon in the 1970's. Nixon endorsed the War on Drugs as public enemy number one. The campaign's responsibility was to put a stop to illicit drugs, distribution, and trade by increasing and enforcing stricter drug policies. The message was clear, and has been engrained in our heads, drugs are bad. The movement has evolved and so has America's perspective on the objective. American's have ranged from full support to claims that it has racist and political alternative motives. This paper will analyze the War on Drugs from a sociological perspective. The government as a complex group that performs a social role in the War on Drugs.